JO - Health Care Compliance Association

Roy Snell and Dan Roach
As part of our efforts to improve member services, the HCCA leadership
has reviewed all of the evaluations submitted by participants at
the Annual Institute in Las Vegas in April. Over the coming weeks,
we will be responding to some of the more common questions/concerns
raised in your comments. These questions include:
1. How do you pick the city in which to hold the Institute?
Picking the location for an Institute is a difficult and risky proposition,
made more difficult as we grow. In making the decision, the
management and board are weighing three important factors—cost,
ease of travel, and the ability to accommodate the meeting. The cost
analysis includes the cost of getting to and from the conference, hotel
room cost, and the cost of staging the conference. The ease of travel
analysis includes the time needed to travel to and from the venue and
takes into account both flight length and the number of flights in and
out of the city to dozens of destinations. The ability to accommodate
the number of registrants is also an important consideration.
Unfortunately, when all these factors are considered, there are relatively
few cities that work. While New York and San Francisco are
easy to get to, they are both prohibitively expensive (close to $300
per night for hotel rooms). Other cities have inexpensive rooms, but
are more costly to fly to, and may not have hotels large enough to
accommodate our meeting. Other cities are more difficult to get to
for a large segment of our members (Orlando and San Diego). While
not complaining about our growth, the reality is that there are fewer
than 10 cities that have hotels with adequate space (unless we want to
move to a convention center). In short, there are less than a handful of
cities that have the right mix of cost, accessibility, and space.
Both the staff and the board work hard to chose a location and
deliver a conference that enables us to cater to a very diverse group
of members. Because our conferences are booked at least two and a
half years in advance, it is a difficult and somewhat risky proposition.
Unfortunately, we will never be able to address the needs of all prospective
participants with respect to cost and location. However, we
will continue to work diligently to do the very best we can with the
constraints and options available.
2. What can we do about the size and weight of the conference
materials?
We received a significant number of complaints about the size and
weight of materials. In fact, we printed millions of pages of handouts
for the last Institute, and the HCCA management would love to figure
out a way to reduce the volume of materials. Consequently, you will
soon be receiving an invitation to participate in an Internet survey
that, among other questions, seeks your input on how to most effectively
distribute conference materials to the participants.
3. Caesar’s Palace ran out of rooms very early last year. What can
be done to ensure that more participants get rooms in the conference
hotel?
Our 2006 Institute included 400 more participants than in previous
years and 800 more participants than we anticipated when we initially
booked Caesar’s Palace. When we sign a contract with a hotel, we
need to agree on a “room block.” This means that the HCCA needs to
guarantee between 4,000 and 5,000 room nights. If we fail to deliver
attendees to fill those rooms, we will be stuck paying the hotel for the
value of the unused rooms. Particularly in a post-9/11 era, we have
tried to mange this risk by agreeing to room blocks that accommodate
approximately 80% of our expected attendance. Unfortunately, when
we signed the contract with Caesar’s Palace, we did not anticipate
the 70% increase in attendance over 3 years.
As soon as it appears that we will have a room shortage, we move
rapidly to obtain additional rooms in the conference hotel or
adjacent hotels. Depending on what other events are happening in the
city and adjacent hotels, this may or may not be possible. One thing
you can do to help the HCCA manage this problem more effectively
September 2006
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Health Care Compliance Association • 888-580-8373 • www.hcca-info.org